Nighttime Wondering
by Elenhin
Summary: Bo and Luke are out camping, and seeing the sky, a country boy starts to think. One Shot.


Author's Note: Okay, reading another story here, by Gia August, I got thinking about a joke I love, and I had to write that joke in a manner that would have Bo and Luke involved in it, and this is how that turned out.

Big thanks to Vinsemouse for beta work.

**Warning**: _The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen. _

Disclaimer: The Duke Boys are not mine, I don't own the Duke boys, nor the General Lee. I promise that once I'm through with them, there will be nothing broken that a trip to Cooter's garage can't fix….

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**_Nighttime Wondering_**

Luke Duke lay on his back on top of his sleeping bag, hands folded behind his neck and gazing up at the night sky. He and Bo were on an overnight camping trip to enjoy themselves after a week filled with hard work. It was their uncle's way of rewarding them. Off for the weekend with no responsibilities, nothing to do more than what they wanted to do. They ate when they were hungry, and it was always something they teased out of the stream, or got in one of their traps. With a little luck they'd be able to bring home some game to restock the pantry with as well.

It had been a full day though, and Bo was sleeping soundly beside him. His cousin always told him he was too much of a thinker, laughing at him with the way he was gazing at the stars.

While his cousin had crawled down into his sleeping bag, Luke had stripped down to his boxers and laid down on top of his. He had folded up his jeans and shirt for a pillow, and set his boots at the foot of the sleeping bag. A safe distance from the glowing embers that was their fire. Luke had prepared the last catch of trout from the day, and used a technique learned in the Marines to cook it. As long as he woke up on occasion and stirred life into the embers, adding a few small slivers of wood, their breakfast would be expertly cooked trout, and Luke had no problem waking up at intervals when he needed to.

He had learned a lot of things in the Marines, mostly things he wished that he hadn't been forced to learn. Things he would do anything to make sure that Bo wouldn't have to learn. How to kill, how to fight for survival, and how to hold on when there seemed to be no reason to. Back in Vietnam he had been looking up at a similar night sky.

It seemed so peaceful now, and it had then too, but Luke remembered how scared he had been once when he lay looking up at the sky. He had been locked up in a cage, and the screams echoing through the night wasn't wild animals, it was the screams of prisoners who were tortured and killed. The rustle in the grass wasn't the wind, it was rats and snakes. He had learned how to tell what it was, if it was a rat you kicked it away, if it was a snake your only chance was to lie still, and he could do it.

Bo slept so peacefully that Luke found it hard to think of him as anything else but his little baby cousin. He had been told how the nigh sky had inspired men to great achievements. At some point, some great thinker had looked up at it and determined it was a velvet bowl over a flat disc. Later the earth had become a round globe. Someone had figured out that the sun wasn't traveling around them, it was the globe that traveled around the sun. Soon they had discovered how the moon was attached, and while Luke preferred Conway Twitty's ponderings on the moon, he was pretty grateful that he wasn't expected to believe some of the earlier theories.

It was because those great thinkers wanted to know what the stars occupied themselves with in the day time when they didn't glow, that they knew more about how the vast space worked. Oh, yeah, they had so many things to thank those great thinkers for, there were so many things they wouldn't know if not for them.

Still, there were times when there was best not to know, and it was one of the other hard lessons Luke had learned in the Marines. Do not ask a question, unless yer dang sure that you want to know the answer to it. It was one reason why some thought Luke did too much thinking, because he'd be quiet and try to work things out.

Bo didn't always understand him when he sank down in thoughts like now, Jesse usually left him alone when he did, and Daisy complained that he was so dark of mood.

Sighing he got up padded over to the fire on bare feet, picking up a sharp splinter he had stepped on and putting it on the fire. Throwing on a few of the slivers he had prepared he poked around in the embers with a stick before carefully putting it to rest on a rock in the fire circle. He wasn't worried about the fire spreading as he sat on his haunches and turned his eyes skywards again. There was a bucket of water close to it, and he'd be awake at the first sign of trouble.

Sighing softly he noticed a shooting star as he dropped back down on his sleeping bag again. Hanging just over the treetops a full moon cast a dim light down over the earth. The moon was a soft glowing orb in a dark surrounding, and it didn't care if a man's pockets was empty, it still cast it's dim light for you.

Because someone somewhere had done enough thinking, he knew that the moon had no light of it's own, it just reflected that of the sun. In some way he thought that maybe people were luckier before they knew that. There were so many stories about the man in the moon, but he wasn't there anymore. When Luke stretched out and enjoyed the cool night air, looking at the moon, he simply just wasn't there. The man in the moon was slain in 1969 by a man named Armstrong.

Maybe science was good for mankind, but it also killed so many things the same man held dear.

Yes, Bo always claimed that he thought too much, and maybe he was right, a time or two Luke had been known to do that. Like the time he tried to think out something so perfect for his aunt, and Luke thought it out so well that Martha didn't understand it. When that had happened Luke had gotten so upset that he ran off to the hayloft and refused to talk to them. Later he had to explain it to his aunt, and then she understood but it simply took something away from it. It had left Luke wishing he was more like Bo, their aunt always seemed to know what he meant.

Jesse had once told him that being smart could sometimes be a problem, and Luke had long ago learned how true that was. Some expected so much from him because of it, and some got jealous and accused him off showing of. For himself he enjoyed it, he was smart even if he wasn't a genius, and Bo often admired him for it. Once when Bo had learned about the great thinkers in school, he had just up and said that if they could achieve so much, he couldn't wait to see what Luke would come up with since he was way smarter than them.

It had been just something that popped out of a thirteen year old, but it had near made Luke blush, and even years later he remembered it. Luke wasn't about to add his name to their's though, maybe he could achieve something, maybe he couldn't, but he'd much rather spend his time beside Bo in the General Lee, then coop himself up in a dark dusty room to find out.

He would rather be a back porch thinker, one who did his thinking with a fishing pole in his hand, and that way he would be happy, and hopefully he would never really kill something as mystical and magical as some of things that had been 'discovered' over the years.

"Luke, why ain't ya sleeping?" Bo mumbled, pushing himself up on an elbow glancing at his cousin. When Luke didn't answer he slipped a foot out of the sleeping bag and touched his cousin's ankle, causing Luke to look at him. Leaving his foot where it was, Bo repeated the question.

"I was just thinking some Bo," Luke explained.

"I kinda figured that, ya know," Bo told him. "What were ya thinking about, was it just some ordinary stuff, or them things gives ya a headache."

"A little of both," Luke admitted. "Been thinking about a lot of things."

"Like what?" Bo asked curiously.

"Well, what do ya think about when ya look up an' see all them stars?" Luke asked mythically.

"Well," Bo said thoughtfully. "I reckon I just think it's real beautiful, an' kinda amazing an' all. An' then I usually get to thinking what a shame it is that my cousin can't just enjoy it, but has to go off an' think about who discovered what, an' how it comes we know what they are an' all that boring stuff that just takes the fun outta it ya know."

"Well Bo, I might be, but right now, I ain't thinking about anything as complicated," Luke chuckled.

"Then what are ya thinking about?" Bo asked, getting more curious now.

"Why don't ya take a guess," Luke grinned.

"Yer thinking about getting up an' doin' a little midnight fishing?" Bo tried hopefully as he was getting hungry.

"Sorry cousin," Luke shook his head.

"Alright then, why don't ya just tell me?" Bo demanded.

"Come on Bo, don't them stars say something to you?" Luke asked pointing a finger up at the sky in the light breeze.

"Not really, does it you?" Bo asked, looking at him.

"Yeah, it does," Luke nodded. "It tells me my cousin who was supposed to fasten that tarp in case it started raining didn't do a very good job."

"Oh," Bo gave him an embarrassed grin. "But it ain't raining, so I'm just gonna say I let it be loose so ya could be looking up at the stars." He hurried to say.

"Alright Cousin," Luke chuckled. "Yer too far ahead of me."

"Get some sleep now, Luke," Bo told him. "No matter how much ya think, it's still gonna be morning too soon, an' yer gonna have to drag my lazy butt out, an' ya know it."

"Trust me, I do know," Luke chuckled. "Goodnight Bo."

"Goodnight Luke," Bo reached out with a hand to pat his cousin before rolling over and going back to sleep.

With one last look at the sky, Luke fell asleep himself.

**The End**

_Please leave a review, the Cricket is hungry…_

A/N: Like I said, this is based on a joke, there are also two songs worked in there, and I'd like to see how many of you can find any of them, if you do, please let me know in the review, and if you can't, but wanna know, let me know that and I'll tell you.


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